Date: 24 May 90 12:43:39 PDT (Thursday)
Subject: Life 6.C
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Steven Wright:
Imagine if birds were tickled by feathers.
You'd see a flock of birds come by, laughing hysterically!
I walked up to a Tourist Information Booth and said:
"So, tell me about some people who were here LAST year!"
My friend's in jail for counterfeiting pennies. Idiot!
It's minimum-security ... he's on a whiffle-ball and chain.
You know how they caught him?
He had the head and the tail on the wrong side!
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"Hello, this is Ron's toaster. Ron's new answering machine
is in the shop for repairs, so please leave your message
when the toast is done .... {Cachunk!}"
----------------------------------------------------
Dave Barry on New York Mean-Spiritedness:
There's a new outfit in New York City called New York Pride, which is
attempting to get New Yorkers to at least pretend that they don't hate
everybody. This program resulted from a survey in which researchers
asked tourists how come they didn't want to come back to New York, and
the tourists said it was because there was so much mean-spiritedness.
So the researchers spat on them.
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Life is like a bagel. It's delicious when it's fresh and warm, but
often it's just hard. The hole in the middle is its great mystery, and
yet it wouldn't be a bagel without it.
Life is like eating grapefruit. First, you have to break through the
skin; then it takes a couple of bites to get used to the taste, and just
as you begin to enjoy it, it squirts you in the eye.
(From Roger von Oech's book: "A Whack On The Side Of The Head")
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A colleague was invited to held a speech in Japan.
Aware of his reputation of a very good speaker, he was surprised that
his audience did not react at all to any of his perfectly timed jokes
and witticisms. In fact, the audience did not react to anything he
said. Somewhat put down, he went back to his seat, and a Japanese
gentleman appeared on the stage. This man had a terrific success!
People laughed and applauded, and although the original speaker could not
understand one bit of what was said. Still he started to applaud, as
the man evidently deserved praise for this perfect speech.
However, he was interrupted by the chairman of the conference:
"No no, sir. You must not applaud!" Dumbfounded he protested:
"But why? This man is obviously a very good speaker."
"No sir, you must not applaud, he is translating your speech."
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One day a very attractive undergraduate visited the professor's
office. This undergraduate pulled the chair closer to the professor,
smiled at him shyly, bumped his knee "accidentally", etc. Finally
the undergraduate said, "Professor, I really need to pass your course.
It is extremely important to me. It is so important that I'll do
anything you suggest."
The professor, somewhat taken aback by this attention, replied,
"Anything?"
To which the undergradute cooed, "Yes, anything you say."
After some brief reflection, the professor asked, "What are you
doing tomorrow afternoon at 3:30?"
The student lied, "Oh, nothing at all, sir. I can be free then."
The professor then advised, "Excellent! Professor Palmer is holding
a help session for his students. Why don't you attend that."
----------------------------------------------------
From the JUNE "Amiga World", p. 7
IMPACT WT150
150 MB Streaming Tape Backup. TAPESTORE(tm) software
makes backups simple, fast, interesting, and exciting.
Tapestore is included with all IMPACT WT150 orders. Free.
Somehow, "interesting" and "exciting" are not two adjectives that
give me a warm feeling about a backup system...
----------------------------------------------------
The NeXT computer:
"The hardware makes it a PC, the software makes it a Workstation,
the unit sales make it a Mainframe." - unknown
----------------------------------------------------
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----------------------------------------------------
From "Levitating Trains and Kamikaze Genes: Technological Literacy for the 1990's"
Describing the difference between computer hardware and software:
"Those parts of the system that you can hit with a hammer
(not advised) are called hardware; those program instructions that
you can only curse at are called software."
----------------------------------------------------
A college student got hopelessly lost in the backwoods trying to take
a short-cut home for the holidays. He finally came upon a lone farm
house and saw an old man sitting on the front porch in a rocking chair.
He went up to the old man to get directions.
Student: "Excuse me sir, but, could you tell me how to get to
Smithville ?"
old man: "Sorry, young fellow, but, I never heered of it."
Student: "Well, could you tell me how to get back to the Interstate?"
old man: "Ah, what's this here Inter-state thing?"
Student: "It's the main road going north and south - a super highway."
old man: "A super road you say. Didn't know there was one."
Student: "You sure don't know much about whats going on, do you?"
old man: "Maybe not, young fellow, but, then again -- I ain't lost."
Student (not knowing when to leave bad enough alone): "I've been told
that you old backwoodsmen are pretty smart even though you haven't had
much schooling."
old man: "Could be. Though I did attend school back in ought 7 and 8."
Student: "Well sir, I am a college student and I wonder if you would
mind having a contest with me to see which of us is the smarter?"
old man: "Wouldn't mine atall - what you got in mind?"
Student: "How about if we take turns asking each other questions until
one of us can't answer."
old man: "And what did you say the stakes were?"
Student: "Well, I didn't - but if you want to play for money - let's
say one dollar a question."
old man: "Seems to me - you being a college student and all - that
you put up a dollar and I put up fifty cents."
Student: "Thats fine with me. You start."
old man: "Okey. What has three legs, is purple, and barks like a dog ?"
Student: (after a long pause) "I don't know. Here's your dollar. But,
what does have three legs, is purple, and barks like a dog ?"
old man: "Danged if I know - here's your fifty cents."
----------------------------------------------------
Mexican fruit flies were just discovered in El Cajon, a city in
San Diego County (no joke). The state is going to start spraying
Malathion to kill off the mexflies before the infestation spreads (no joke).
And thousands of local residents have been getting pretty hostile about
it (no joke, especially if you're on the city council).
So there's this rumor going around that the city council is
considering making a TV-movie about the city's insect infestation.
They're going to call it "mexflies & videotape."
----------------------------------------------------
News of the Weird:
OLD HABITS DIE HARD
-------------------
Canadian prison inmate Robert Walters, halfway through a 24-year
sentence for robbery, was allowed out of Collins Bay penitentiary for six
hours on a "resocializing program" on the condition that his guard keep him
in sight at all times. After the two got drunk at a bar, Walters excused
himself and popped across the street to rob a bank.
FIRST RULE OF CRIME: DON'T GET SIDETRACKED
------------------------------------------
When a man pulled two guns on convenience store clerk Wazir Jiwi and
demanded money, Jiwi asked how much he wanted for one of the guns. He said
$100, which Jiwi paid him. Then Jiwi offered to buy the second gun. The
robber handed it over, grabbed the cash and headed for the exit. But Jiwi
had pushed a button under the counter that automatically locked the door.
"He turned to me and asked what was going on," Jiwi says. "I told
him to bring the money back and I would let him go. He brought the money back,
and I opened the door."
STAYIN' ALIVE
-------------
Doctors at University Hospital in Amsterdam, Holland, are piping
disco music into incubators to improve the breathing rhythm of premature
babies. The doctors say they started the technique with Perry Como records,
but found infant breathing was too slow and unable to keep a beat, so they
switched to disco.
DON'T CALL MENSA, THEY'LL CALL YOU
----------------------------------
Police had no trouble solving the robbery of a restaurant in Austin,
Texas, even though suspect Eugene "Butch" Flenough Jr. disguised himself by
wearing a motorcycle helmet. It had "Butch" and "Eugene Flenough Jr."
printed on it.
CHEAPER THAN A CLOAK OR A DAGGER
--------------------------------
The FBI has begun advertising in a Russian-language newspaper in New
York City for information from recent Soviet emigres about the KGB. The ads,
costing $300 each, promise "replies will be kept in the strictest confidence."
ANOTHER REASON NOBODY ASKS COPS TO PARTIES
------------------------------------------
Police in Sydney Mines, Nova Scotia, raided their own Christmas party
for not having a liquor licence.
----------------------------------------------------
Obviously, Football is a syndrome of religious rites symbolizing the
struggle to preserve the Egg of Life through the rigors of impending
winter. The rites begin at the Autumn Equinox and culminate on the
first day of the New Year, with great festivals identified with bowls
of plenty. The festivals are associated with flowers such as roses;
fruits such as oranges; farm crops such as cotton; and even sun-worship
and appeasement of great reptiles such as alligators.
In these rites, the Egg of Life is symbolized by what is called
"The Oval", an inflated bladder covered with hog skin. The convention
of "The Oval" is repeated in the architectural oval-shaped design of
the vast outdoor churches in which the services are held every sabbath
in every town and city. Also every Sunday in the greater centers of
population where an advanced priesthood performs. These enormous
churches dominate every college campus; no other edifice compares in
size with them, and they bear witness to the high spiritual development
of the culture that produced them.
Literally millions of worshipers attend the sabbath services in these
open-air churches. Subconsciously, these hordes are seeking an outlet
from sexual frustration in anticipation of violent masochism and sadism
about to be enacted by a highly trained priesthood of young men. Football
obviously arises out of the Oedipus complex. Love of mother dominates
the entire ritual. (Notre Dame and Football are synonymous).
The rites are preformed on a green rectangular area orientated to the
four directions. The green area, symbolizing Summer, is striped with
ominous white lines representing the knifing snows of Winter. The
white stripes are repeated in the ceremonial costumes of the four
whistling monitors who control the services through a time period
divided into four quarters, symbolizing the four Seasons.
The ceremony begins with colorful processions of musicians and semi-nude
virgins who move in and out of ritualized patterns. This excites the
thousands of worshipers to rise from their seats, shout frenzied poetry
in unison and chant ecstatic anthems through which runs the Oedipus
theme of willingness to die for the love of mother.
The actual rites, performed by 22 young priests of perfect physique,
might appear to the uninitiated as a chaotic conflict concerned only
with hurting the Oval by kicking it, then endeavoring to rescue and
protect the Egg.
However, the procedure is highly stylized. On each side there are
eleven young men wearing colorful and protective costumes. The group
in so-called "possession" of the Oval first arrange themselves in an
egg-shaped "huddle," as it is called, for a moment of prayerful
meditation and whispering of secret numbers to each other.
Then they rearrange themselves with relation to the position of the
Egg. In a typical "formation" there are seven priests "on the line,"
seven being a mystical number associated not, as Jung purists might
contend, with the "seven last words" but actually, with sublimation
of the "seven deadly sins" into "the seven cardinal principles of
education."
The central priest crouches over the Egg, protecting it with his
hands, while over his back quarters hovers the "Quarterback." The
transposition of "back quarters" to "quarterback" is easily
explained by the Adler School. To the layman the curious posture
assumed by the "Quarterback," as he hovers over the central priest,
immediately suggests the Cretan origins of Mycenaean animal art,
but this popular view is untenable. Actually, of course, the
"quarter-back" symbolizes the libido, combining two instincts,
namely, a) Eros, which strives for even closer union, and b) the
instinct for destruction of anything which lies in the path of Eros.
Moreover, the "pleasure-pain" excitement of the hysterical
worshipers focuses entirely on the actions of the libido-quarter-back.
Behind him are three priests representing the male triad.
At a given signal, the Egg is passed by sleight-of-hand to one of
the members of the triad who endeavors to move it by bodily force
across the white lines of Winter. This procedure up and down the
enclosure, continues through the four quarters of the ritual.
At the end of the second quarter, implying the Summer Slostice, the
processions of musicians and semi-nude virgins are resumed. After
forming themselves into pictograms representing alphabetical and
animal fetishes, the virgins perform a most curious rite requiring
far more dexterity than the earlier phallic Maypole rituals from
which it seems to be derived. Each of the virgins carries a wand
of shining metal which she spins on her fingertips, tosses playfully
into the air, and with which she interweaves her body in most
intricate gyrations.
The virgins perform another important function throughout the entire
service. This concerns the mystical rite of "conversion" following
success of one of the young priests in carrying the Oval across the
last white line of Winter. As the moment of "conversion" approaches,
the virgins kneel at the edge of the rectangle, bury their faces in
the earth, then raise their arms to heaven in supplication, praying
that "the uprights will be split." "Conversion" is indeed a
dedicated ceremony.
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